November 2020
Dust beats my eyelids into submission. A cloth across my face whips in the wind, demanding I turn my head away from the storm. But I cannot.
Tracks in the sand lead into the blur of red-tinged sand not a meter ahead, refusing to disappear despite the torrent around me. My feet, of their own accord, lift, reach, and step, finding each track, matching it perfectly. I am here, but I am not in cont–
The ground disappears. The wind defines the shape of my body and forces my eyes wide open. The ground approaches, quickly.
As I contact the ground, time slows to grant me the fullest agony. Skin tears wide open. Bones shatter. Tendons snap. Organs scream. Then, bit by bit, I heal. Organs push shattered bone out. Tendons find their missing ends. Bones pull themselves together. Skin closes up, whole once more. Sweat, tears, and blood soak into the sand.
I stand, and I walk.
“One must imagine Sisyphus Happy.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
Sisyphus’ Boulder reinterprets a recurring dream from my adolescence. Built using Adobe After Effects, the simple animation encounters the questions of fate, purpose, and pain that bear down on us as we transition into adulthood.
Process
